New Year's Drama, Guys in Bands, and A Public Service Announcement for the People of Los Angeles

[Currently Watching: Metropolis]


Last year, my roommate and I had a big new year's party. It was kind of insane but a lot of fun, so we decided to do it again this year, even though my roommate has since moved out and I've taken the place over for myself. Her involvement meant twice the amount of people would be showing up, as usually a large chunk of the crowd at our parties is her friends and their friends. And indeed, there was quite a crowd this year. It was more or less perfect when we all shouted the countdown and toasted with champagne, but after that more people just kept coming, and by about one o'clock I was no longer having fun, as I was neurotically shoving my way through the masses into various rooms, policing the dozens of strangers who were wandering throughout my house. There were as many people outside as there were inside, completely packing the patio and spilling out into the driveway and street, and the majority of them were complete douchebags. Douchebags with beards.

I don't know why, but LA hipsters love their fucking big ugly 70's beards. There are always large groups of sweater-wearing bearded Silverlake uber-douches that crawl out of dirty coffee shops and used record stores and manage to find their way to my house whenever I have a party, just so they can sausage out the place and drink up all the beer. I think they feel like having a beard and wearing a sweater distinguishes them as record-collecting, coffee-drinking, PBRs-at-Silverlake-Lounge hipsters who are in math rock bands, rather than the beardless, drug-snorting, Jack-and-Coke-at-The-Beauty-Bar hipsters who are in new wave bands. The irony beard is one of my least favorite looks for lame hipster dudes. It doesn't look cool, guys. There's nothing even remotely attractive or interesting about it. You look like complete tools. Shave that shit and please put a fucking bullet in this asinine 70's trend that no one can seem to let go of. That includes shirts like these:



You know the type: Idiotic, faux-vintage shirts with stupid tongue-in-cheek 70's/80's graphics and/or catch phrases. PLEASE. Everyone. Go to your closet and pull out all of the shirts like this that you've bought at Urban Outfitters since this dumb trend started a thousand years back, and burn them to the fucking ground. Don't sell them to a thrift store, that will only compound the problem. Just set them ablaze. It's time to let go. It's fucking over. It descended into mall fashion more than two years ago but still no one can get enough. I'm ashamed that my generation is going to be looked back on as the one who couldn't muster up enough creativity to define their own style, but instead had to drudge up bad fashion statements from the past and feign nostalgia for shit that happened before they were born.

Another vile infection of my party - and this city in general - is everyone's need to be in a shitty little local band, and - more importantly - that anyone still thinks that's cool. It's not. It's not cool, it's not unique, it's not impressive. These days, it's much more unique to not be in a band, and have no desire to be in one. Literally everyone in LA is in some manner of insignificant indie band, and guys in bands can't wait to find a way to tell you about it. I can't tell you how many times some friend introduces me to some typical LA dude with shaggy hair and stupid clothes wearing sunglasses inside, and I say something nonchalant like "Hey, nice to meet you, what's going on?" and his response is along the lines of: "Oh, not too bad. Just finished up recording some new tracks with my band." How am I meant to react to that? HOLY SHIT!! Whoa, WHAT?? You're in a BAND??? FUCK, that's SO COOL!!! I had NO IDEA I was talking to someone who's IN A BAND!! Please, tell me all about it! Tell me how you got signed to a record label that your girlfriend's cousin runs out of his basement, and you're releasing your first EP in March, and by releasing you mean it'll be on the local music shelf at Amoeba because this girl you used to date works there and she'll hook you up if you keep knocking the drinks off of her bill when she comes into the restaurant you work at. Please, tell me which combination of early 80's post-punk bands you sound like, and by sound like I mean a watered-down copy of a copy of a copy, stripped of talent and innovation and sincerity.

Or, my other favorite: "So, what do you do?" "Oh, I'm in a band." Okay, let me rephrase that: "What restaurant do you work at?" Or: "Do you just work the cashier at Amoeba, or do you stock the shelves too?" Unless you are one of the few people who actually have had enough success with your band to be able to quit your day job, being in a band is not your fucking occupation. It's just a dumb hobby that no one is impressed by. It's like if someone asked me what I do and I said "I play video games and bitch about shit on the internet." Yes, I wish that was my job, but it's not. It's funny how people who are in good and/or successful bands tend to be the ones who don't feel the need to bring it up at every possible opportunity.

Even worse is the girlfriend of the guy who's in a shitty little local band - the vapid scene princess who looks like a rejected American Apparel ad and lives vicariously through the non-accomplishments of her talentless boyfriend. For as many times as I've talked to a guy who can't wait to mention that he's in a band, I've also talked to girls who can't wait to mention that they're dating someone who's in a band. Like, I'm introduced and I say, "How's it going?" and her response is "Oh, not much, I was just over at the studio where my boyfriend is recording." Translation: "My boyfriend stands on a stage at small, half-empty clubs and plays an instrument, and because I'm inexplicably drawn to that I'm overlooking the fact that he can't support himself with his wait staff job at Fred's, and that he's a burnout heroin addict who cheats on me with herpes-infested Hollywood sluts, and he barely qualifies as having a tenth grade education! But none of that matters because he's in a BAND and that means something to the shallow, bottom-feeding social parasites I call my friends!" Wow. Color me impressed.

Okay, sorry, that was a bit of a tangent. The point is that my party was starting to fill up with unbearable douchebags, and I was trying to get some of them to leave when a couple of my friends told me that some girls were upstairs in my office doing coke, and they wouldn't stop - so I stormed up there to investigate, and found the door to my office locked from the inside. I banged on the door and yelled, and after a moment it opened, revealing several girls who I didn't know gathered around a white dust stain on my glass office desk where a great deal of cocaine had presumably just been ingested. I told them to get the fuck out, and I didn't appreciate them A) coming up to my office without my permission, and B) bringing drugs in my house and getting them all over my furniture. They grumbled sheepishly and headed downstairs. I told them I was going to call the cops if they didn't leave.

I have a very strong distaste for cocaine. I find it a vile, dirty substance that corrupts personalities and destroys lives. I don't want to do it, I don't want to be around it, I don't want to be around people who are doing it... I don't want it in my life in any way, shape, or form. I've watched it destroy far too many lives of people around me to offer anything other than condemnation of it at this point. I don't think you're even slightly cool if you do it, I think you're sad. And that anyone could think it's even remotely okay to bring it into a complete stranger's house and spread it out all over his furniture in a room they've entered without permission is completely beyond my understanding. They couldn't even just do it in the bathroom like normal cokeheads. So when I saw the girls still at my party a little while later, after having already asked them to leave, I had to resort to humiliation to get them out. Coke is, after all, the drug that everyone does but no one talks about - so you can imagine they were none too pleased when I pointed at them from across the room, shouted at the top of my lungs and announced to everyone, "HEY LOOK, IT'S THE COKEHEADS! THOSE GIRLS WERE DOING COKE UP IN MY ROOM! THEY LOCKED THE DOOR TO MY OFFICE AND SPREAD IT OUT ALL OVER MY DESK AND SNORTED UP A SHITLOAD OF IT! ISN'T THAT COOL? BE SURE TO TELL THEM HOW COOL YOU THINK THAT IS!!"

It appeared to be working, as they scowled at me and started heading for the door. Then, one of them came up to me, furious, and said, "Hey, we're leaving, okay? I don't appreciate you humiliating my friends like that!"
and so I said: "Really?? Well I don't appreciate you and your friends going into my office without permission and doing coke in there!"
and she said: "What the fuck do you expect? It's a party, of course people are going to be doing drugs!"
and I said: "Well it's MY party, and I don't want anyone doing coke off of my furniture! It's fucking disrespectful and disgusting!"
and she screamed "FUCK YOU!" and grabbed a nearby glass bottle and threw it at me as hard as she could, then started running off.

It would seem that I'm some sort of magnet for glass bottles. People just really like to attack me with them. This time, however, the girl missed, and instead hit Tamar - an innocent bystander - in the shoulder. Who the fuck does that? Seriously, she could have given someone a concussion, or broken someone's nose. That is utterly insane behavior. By this time, of course, everyone at the party was watching the incident unfold. I stormed after the girl, screaming at her that she was out of her fucking mind. A couple other people were chasing her too. She ran out towards the street with her friends, and shouted back at me - this is the best - "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?? DO YOU KNOW WHO MY FATHER IS??" She actually said that. Verbatim. The most retarded Hollywood cliche in the book. I and everyone at the party roared in laughter as she disappeared down the street. I find myself forced to say this far more often than I'd like, but it's once again appropriate: "Only in LA."

Since then we've found out that the girl's name is Alia Intably, and as a public service I would like to warn everyone in Los Angeles to stay away from her, as she is dangerous and has been known to attack people violently - Tamar's shoulder is still sore from the incident. I never did find out who her father is, but I hope he finds out about this, as I'm sure regardless of who he is he wouldn't condone his daughter's reprehensible behavior.

After that bit of drama, the number of weird strangers invading my home continued to grow, until I could take no more and had to shout out "ATTENTION EVERYBODY! YOU PROBABLY DON'T KNOW WHO I AM, BUT THIS IS ACTUALLY MY HOUSE YOU'RE IN RIGHT NOW, AND MOST OF YOU ARE BEING EXTREMELY DISRESPECTFUL OF IT! SO ANYONE WHO DOES NOT KNOW MY FIRST AND LAST NAME, PLEASE GET THE FUCK OUT IMMEDIATELY!" Slowly but surely, it worked.

What a pain in the ass. At least it got better when the crowd thinned out to my actual friends. Next time I'm having my own party with only people I actually know in attendance. And I'm having a guest list. And a bouncer at the door to enforce it. A midget bouncer. A really buff midget bouncer. With a top hat. And a laser gun.